


Confessions of a Teenage Drama Head

by Mariyum_Klein



Category: Original Work
Genre: Coming of Age, Gen, Humor, Orthodox Jewish Fiction
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-07
Updated: 2016-04-08
Packaged: 2018-05-31 18:48:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 16,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6482875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mariyum_Klein/pseuds/Mariyum_Klein
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ladies and gentleman, boys and girls, allow me to regale you with the story of the third stupidest thing I have ever done.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> For my real-life Mari and dear soulbuddy, with love and thanks

**Ladies and gentleman, boys and girls, allow me to regale you with the story of** the third dumbest thing I have ever done.

As the distinction implies, this particular story is dumber than the fourth dumbest thing I’ve ever done (trying to cut my own hair), but not as dumb as the second dumbest thing I’ve ever done (driving Leah Gittel home before I had my license – yeah, okay, stop giving me that judging look, I know it was a bad idea _now_ ). It is a story of intrigue and suspense, of crippling illness and deadly adversary, and of far too many pairs of pantaloons.

More importantly, though, it is a story that will keep you guessing with its twists and turns, and keep you going back to the beginning of its rambling and sometimes purposeless run-on sentences in a noble but mainly futile effort to follow my thought patterns, like a heat-seeking missile follows its target, or, well, more like a regular missile, because a heat-seeking missile would probably do a pretty good job of following its target. And sentences don’t have body heat.

Anyway.

You’ll laugh, you’ll cry – okay, you probably won’t cry, I mean, there’s nothing _that_ depressing in here, but you might. You know. Get a bit damp around the lashes. It’s a definite possibility. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, The Confessions of Mariyum Klein is one episode of untiring self-disclosure that promises to provide a satisfyingly full-bodied, if slightly lemon-scented, emotional experience.

And the best part is, it’s all one hundred percent true.

Or at _least_ ninety-five percent true, anyway.


	2. Or As I Like To Call It, The Post-logue

**You never wake up and think,** **“** **Today, something fantastic will happen.** **”**

Well, no, sometimes you do. But on those days, you skip into school riding on a tidal wave of beautiful anticipatory energy and inevitably end up saying something dumb to somebody, or slipping on the newly-mopped linoleum and falling on your face, or if you’re talented like me, accomplishing both simultaneously. In other words, you have a day just like any other.

This particular morning, I wake up and think, “Today, something pizza-related will happen, maybe.”

It turns out they don’t have pizza for lunch, they have those greyish chicken patties that bear a remarkable resemblance to their fraternal cousins, underarm flab, and really, that’s all right too.

I mean, _I_ think it’s all right; Aiden would disagree. She can’t stand the chicken patties. I’m not sure if it’s because she actually doesn’t like them or because she is morally obligated to be upset with the lousy school [insert amenity here]s on principle. Either way, lunch is a lot more fun when Leah Gittel and I get to munch on our suspiciously elastic patties to the background music of Aiden railing vehemently against the tyrannical system, again.

I’m somewhat engrossed in poking one of my patties and watching it wiggle, so I only realize a few sentences in that Aiden has dragged my name into her bi-weekly poultry product crusade.

“…And now Mari can’t even eat lunch! She’s being denied her basic rights!”

I look up. “I am eating lunch, though.”

“And I’m pretty sure I’ve never seen lunch specified as a basic right,” Leah Gittel adds, doing that crooked smiling thing she does when she’s trying not to laugh.

“You’ve barely touched it!” Aiden argues.

“I’m just not hungry in the middle of the day, I guess.”

“Yeah, okay,” says Aiden, leaning toward me conspiratorially. “But there’s probably a food you would eat if they served it.”

I think about this. “Potato chips, I guess.”

“Right! And you deserve to eat lunch like anyone else. So they should have to accommodate you, and all the rest of the girls who only want to eat potato chips for lunch!” She bangs her fist on the table for emphasis. I’m suitably impressed. Leah Gittel snorts into her styrofoam cup of tomato soup.

Although it’s true that I’m willing to make an exception for potato chips no matter how not-hungry I am, for the most part the Adderall kind of zaps my appetite. But it’s worth it I guess, ‘cause even _with_ the medication I tend to space out, and, you know, people have varied responses to said spacing out, the worst of which are definitely my grandmother’s.

Baba: Jews can’t afford to daydream.

                        Me: Why not?

                        Baba: Because it’s galus! Hashem yiracheim, you’ll never make it out of Poland alive.

That’s not the worst of the Baba Disapproval, though, not even close. Another time when she was over at our house, we were at the table eating breakfast and I leave to use the bathroom, right? But when I get back, my bowl of cereal is empty and Baba is rocking this gigantic milk moustache. So I’m just standing there staring at her, and she turns to me and says solemnly, “Never leave food lying out, mamale. At least spit in it first.”

Or how about the time I came home after school and the front door was hanging open, and you know, we leave the door unlocked sometimes, but we definitely don’t leave it open. So I’m thinking burglars, ninjas, possibly killer squirrels as I step into the house all nervous-like.

“Hello?” I call, which is obviously my initial mistake, because the first poor loser to die is always the dumb one wandering around and calling, “hello?”

The house is completely dark and quiet, and I’m starting to think that maybe Mom or Dad was in a rush and just forgot to close the door when I hear a creak coming from the den. So I swallow hard and, against my better judgment, tiptoe in that direction. “Mom? Dad?”

Which is when I feel something small and hard being pressed between my shoulder blades.

Followed by a “Gotcha, mamale!”

Followed by me passing out in the hallway.

Now, it’s true that I’m not the only one who’s subjected to Baba’s strange and semi-traumatic survival training games; the problem is that my fourteen-year-old brother Yonah is actually really good at them, and my nine-year-old brother Menashe, being nine and the adorable dweeb he is, doesn’t get flak for being a coward.

At least Dad empathizes with me. He told me once about a time when he and Mom had just got engaged, and after dinner Baba gave them each a plastic grocery bag and ordered them to pack everything they would need for the rest of their foreseeable lives in it. In five minutes.

This, apparently, was Baba’s test of Mom’s suitability as a wife for her son, and Mom passed with flying colors. She packed some clothing, a toothbrush, money (in both cash and credit forms), her ID, a siddur, and a towel.

“A towel?” I wonder at this point in the story.

“Always bring a towel,” says my mother wisely.

My father, meanwhile, packed a flashlight, two large bags of popcorn, his harmonica, and a neck pillow.

Needless to say, Baba was Not Pleased.

(Also needless to say, I take after Dad.)

Anyway, Baba isn’t the only one who wishes I’d focus more. My mom has her own semi-derogatory-and-yet-loving method of telling me to stop being a space case.

“I’m just worried about your safety,” she says, several times, usually when other family members are present. “I’ve heard that kids with ADD are more impulsive. Are you more impulsive than other kids? I think so. Remember when you tried to drive Leah Gittel home by yourself? Before you had your license?”

“Mom!” I protest. “That wasn’t my fault!” She really should know this by now. She was even the very first person I called and explained everything to right after The Incident. I was very straightforward about it. The conversation went like this:

            Mom: Hello?

            Me: It wasn’t my fault!

And I am so not more impulsive than other kids! What about Yonah, who didn’t like his glasses, and ended up “accidentally” putting them on the ground and jumping on them? And then when Dad said he could probably fix them, Yonah promptly ran over them with his bike! I mean, that sounds pretty impulsive to me!

Anyway, um. What were we talking about?

Somehow between then and now, Aiden, Leah Gittel, and I have transferred from the lunchroom to our lockers in the eleventh grade hallway, and the conversation seems to have switched to some other topic entirely.

“…kind of thing when me and Mari are the drama heads and you’re choir head,” Aiden is saying emphatically.

“I want to say that I won’t,” Leah Gittel agrees. “But it’s almost like a chemical reaction. Or zombies. You take a bunch of nice girls and you give them senior jobs as play heads, and suddenly they turn into bloodthirsty monsters so eager to prove themselves that they’ll step over anyone and everyone to do it. Plus, we don’t know that I’ll be choir head,” she adds, even though we totally do. Leah Gittel has a great voice and has been in choir every single year since there was a choir to be in. It’s me and Aiden that we really can’t be sure about – there are going to be so many people vying for drama head next year.

“Nah, I’m positive we’re not gonna be like that when we’re in twelfth grade. As long as we have – ”

I guess we’ll never know what we’ll have that will keep us from becoming abusive play heads, because that’s when the PA drones, “Mariyum Klein, please report to the office. Mariyum Klein, please report to the office.”

I look up toward the general direction of the staticky disembodied voice beckoning my name. What did I do this time?

“What did you do this time?” Aiden asks, looking distinctly proud of me and my unnamed act of defiance against institutional imperialism.

“That’s what _I_ want to know!”

“I’m sure it’s nothing,” says Leah Gittel soothingly.

“If it was nothing, they wouldn’t be calling her to the office,” says Aiden. She rubs her hands together gleefully. “Have you been holding out on us, Mari? Huh? What horrible, no-good things have you been up to?”

“I guess I should go find out,” I mutter, putting my books back into my locker and closing the door.

Aiden shuts her locker with her foot. “Lucky. You’re gonna be late for class.”

“We’ll let Mrs. Rosenstern know that you were called to the office,” says Leah Gittel.

I wave goodbye to them and head toward my not necessarily certain but definitely probable doom.

On the way there I try to remember what heinous crime I did to warrant a trip to the principal, but I honestly can’t think of anything. I’ve even been coming to class on time recently. I’m the sort of girl who gets in trouble for daydreaming or doodling during class, if I get in trouble at all, which is a pretty rare phenomenon. Even if I were the sort of person to misbehave, the prospect of having to explain myself to Mrs. Brigman, the principal, is enough to keep anybody from stepping a toe out of line. I mean, she’s already so scary when it comes to minor misdemeanors…if someone were to do something _really_ bad…

Like, let’s take George the Felon, on his great escape from prison, smashing through one of the school’s tall windows and tumbling to the floor in a shower of glass shards and students’ screams. He’s pulling himself to his feet, his orange uniform bedraggled and torn, his tattooed forehead beading with sweat, when he’s stopped in his tracks by one of Mrs. Brigman’s modest but elegant heels. He lifts his fearful gaze to her disapproving one.

“George,” Mrs. Brigman says. “We have a high standard for those in our schools. We have zero tolerance for prison breakouts.”

“I—I’m so sorry,” George the Felon stammers.

Mrs. Brigman would then level him with her ultimate weapon: her Disappointed Look. “I expected better of you, George.”

“I, I know that, Mrs. Brigman,” George mutters, staring at the floor.

And then we’d keep him chained up outside the bathrooms with a sign that says, _Beware: George_.

I realize suddenly that I’ve arrived outside the principal’s office, where Mrs. Brigman is waiting for me with that hard-lined, steely expression. I swallow.

“Take a seat, Mariyum.”

“Are you sure?” I ask.

She nods.

I shrug. Well, if she insists. I grab hold of the chair, lift it over my head, and go sprinting out of the room.

…Except I don’t. I blink. Mrs. Brigman is still waiting with one eyebrow raised for me to sit down.

I take a deep breath and sit.


	3. I Make a Decision

**You may or may not have realized that all of the dumbest things I’ve done** were times I attempted to do things that I’m very simply not qualified to do. The third dumbest thing I did is no different. And here it comes.

 

*     *     *

Mrs. Brigman puts her clasped hands in front of her on the desk. “You are aware that as of right now, there is only one drama head. Right?”

“Sure.” Who isn’t? Now there’s an interesting story… Near the end of the last school year, one of the drama heads, a girl named Yael Weismann, who even before this incident had a pretty solid reputation for being – well, that’s a story for a different time. Anyway, I have it under good authority (read: Aiden) that Yael brought a copy of the school rules and a printout of her co-head’s transcripts to the principal and pointed out that A) aforementioned co-head was failing Emunah & Bitachon, a half-hour class first thing on Sundays and that half the students, apparently including this co-head, never show up to (because it isn’t included in the GPA). It’s also a class that just so happens to be graded entirely on attendance. And then Yael drew Mrs. Brigman’s attention to B) Rule 19.4.d: “If a student is failing any class, she may not be involved in the play until her grades are once again acceptable.”

And that is the epic story of how this year’s drama head forced her co-head to quit the play. It was the only thing anyone had wanted to talk about for, like, two days, but that was back in May, and now it’s late October. Why’s Mrs. Brigman bringing it up again? And what does it have to do with me?

“Well, the staff involved in the play and I had thought one head would work, but we’ve recently reconsidered – this year’s script is very long and the needs of the play are very intensive. In this case, the play really requires two drama heads.”

I nod agreeably. “That makes sense.”

She looks at me. I look at her.

She sighs. “You’re not following me, are you.”

“Of course I’m not,” I protest, kind of insulted. “That’s illegal!” Well, for all I know, it might not be illegal, I’m not a lawyer or anything. But it’s definitely very creepy and stalkerish. Where would I follow Mrs. Brigman anyway? Doesn’t she live in the school building?

I imagine the principal’s office at 10 PM. Mrs. Brigman is doing paperwork at her desk when she catches sight of the clock.

“Oh, it’s gotten so late,” Mrs. Brigman sighs in a breathy, not-very-Mrs.-Brigman-like voice. “Time to turn in.”

She kneels down to pull a sleeping bag out from underneath her desk, rolls it out, and climbs in, falling asleep instantly with a peaceful smile on her face.

I realize I’m smiling peacefully too and quickly get my expression back to neutral because I’m pretty sure it doesn’t fit the current situation.

“We would like you to be the second drama head,” real-life Mrs. Brigman is saying, like she’s starting to second-guess herself on this.

“ _What?”_ I shout. “You want _me_ to be the second drama head?”

“That is what I said,” she says, deadpan.

“ _Why?”_ which, as soon as it’s out of my mouth, seems to be not the wisest of questions, or at least not the clearest. I mean, I could be asking why I was chosen for drama head, or why we have a play at all, or why bad things happen to good people. Or even what she did to give her Keurig coffee maker that enormous crack down the side that’s been patched together with masking tape. Which I guess is a question of why bad people happen to good things. Anyway, my point is, with open questions like _why?_ the possibilities are endless, which is why it’s pretty impressive (or maybe just lucky) that she gets my meaning.

“Your name came up in the conversation about the candidates for drama head,” she says cryptically.

“What about the girl who used to be the second drama head?” I demand. Ahh, what was her name…? Umm, “Gilroy?” That’s not it.

For some reason, Mrs. Brigman is looking at me strangely. “She was our first thought, but unfortunately she has been reassigned to fundraising head.” Ah. And the school is, of course, very hesitant to relieve anyone from a job in fundraising, especially the head of it.

“So would you like the job? You can take some time to think about it.”

This seems like a good piece of advice. So I do.

The curtain opens on Mari’s Mental Puppet Theater. A little Mrs. Brigman puppet pops up behind a little desk and trills, “So would you like the job? You can take some time to think about it.”

A little Mari puppet pops up and squeaks, “This sounds like a lot of work.”

Another little Mari puppet appears. “But it might be fun!”

“But so much work!”

“Everyone will think I’m really cool for getting to be a play head in eleventh grade!” a third Mari puppet says.

“I’m hungry!” whines a fourth.

 

*     *     *

 

Hey! I can see those eyes glazing over. Don’t you go getting antsy now, my very dumb thing will be coming along soon. Wait for it…

 

*     *     *

 

“…But if we do this we’ll have to work with Yael the Scary!” the eighth Mari puppet protests. At this point the Mrs. Brigman puppet is smushed into her desk by the overcrowding of Mari puppets on the scene.

“She’s scary!” cries yet another.

“Maybe she’s secretly really nice when you get to know her!”

Nine Mari puppets turn slowly to look at the last. The Mrs. Brigman puppet peels herself from the tiny desk and summarily flings the tenth Mari puppet offstage.

“Well, Mrs. Brigman wouldn’t bring the idea to us if Yael hadn’t already agreed!” the seventh Mari puppet picks up the line of conversation without missing a beat.

A murmur runs through the crowd of Maris at this insight.

“Well, if she thinks it’s a good idea, who are we to argue?” says the fifth.

All forms of Mari being equally allergic to confrontation, nobody volunteers to be the one to argue.

“We’re in agreement then,” says Mrs. Brigman, sounding far more smug than any puppet has a right to be.

“Well… okay,” I say at last.

 

*     *     *

 

Aaand there it is. Right. There.


	4. I Immediately Regret My Decision

**Now, you** **’** **re thinking,** **“** **Well, agreeing to be drama head isn** **’** **t _that_ dumb!** **”**

Oh but it _is_ that dumb.

Because what I do not realize – because Mrs. Brigman did not feel it necessary to tell me – is that they have not yet deigned to tell Yael of this lovely and definitely-not-assassination-provoking plan to recruit a second drama head.

“You _what_?” I screech.

“Well, don’t worry, I’m about to tell her,” Mrs. Brigman says calmly. “I’ll have her called in now.”

So she steps out and leaves me hyperventilating in her office, my mind roiling with the many rumors I’ve heard about Yael Weismann, the twelfth grader often referred to as The Cactus (because woe be unto you who attempts to get close) or – in hushed tones, while sending panicky glances over their shoulders – the Satan Lady.

Now, that doesn’t mean that she isn’t liked. Quite the opposite, actually. She’s the type of girl everybody wishes they could be friends with, in the same sort of way that they wish they could have coffee with the Queen. (Hey, she doesn’t have to have tea all the time. She can drink whatever she wants, she’s the Queen for crying out loud!) And by that I mean it’s the kind of thing that realistically will never happen, but sure would make for a great story.

All of which could, I guess, say very positive things about Yael, ‘cause I mean, if being admired and feared by all and sundry at the tender age of seventeen isn’t accomplishment, what is? Aside from, you know, being a relatively nice person and _not_ having a reputation for staring students and teachers alike into submission.

And, okay, yes, the high school rumor mill is not exactly the ideal source for accurate, unbiased information, but I still maintain that it’s within the realm of reason to be scared silly of what she’ll do to me considering she forced the previous co-head to quit – and at least from what I’d heard, that’s what happens in the unlikely circumstance that Yael _likes_ someone.

Mrs. Brigman steps back into the office.

“Just promise you won’t let her hurt me,” I beg.

She looks at me, bemused. “All right?”

Somehow that doesn’t calm me very much. So I keep right on hyperventilating.

“Would you like a paper bag?” Mrs. Brigman offers.

“That would be great,” I huff.

Unfortunately, I never get that paper bag because that’s when Yael Weismann herself appears at the door. Fortunately, I don’t really need the bag anymore, because I’ve stopped breathing altogether.

There isn’t any one specific thing about the drama head that’s explicitly terrifying, although there is an undeniable _something_ intimidating about her. It’s more of an overall effect that somehow makes your brain equate her with flashing red letters that spell **_DANGER_.**

She leans against the doorframe with a self-confidence I didn’t think possible in high school, her cool, dispassionate gaze sweeping across the room and skipping over me as if I were a piece of furniture.

“You wanted to see me?” Yael says, equal parts polite and put-upon.

“Yes. Take a seat.”

She sits down in the chair next to me without once glancing in my direction. “Is this about the script?”

“It’s related to the script,” Mrs. Brigman says.

Yael just tilts her head and waits, studying the principal with a gaze so piercing and so intense that I actually squirm uncomfortably in my seat, and I’m not even the one she’s looking at.

Mrs. Brigman, to her credit, seems perfectly composed. “While I have full confidence in your abilities as a drama head, as I was reviewing the script it occurred to me that it was not only unusually long but unusually complex, to the degree that I couldn’t imagine one head being able to accomplish everything it called for. I asked some other staff members what they thought and they agreed. We think it would be best if you were to work with another drama head on this project.”

Meanwhile during this short speech, I watch in morbid fascination as Yael’s posture becomes increasingly rigid, and her grip increasingly taut on the arms of the chair. “With all due respect,” she says, her voice low and tight, “I disagree.”

“With all due respect,” Mrs. Brigman replies, “it’s not your decision to make.”

“Let me try to do this play by myself, difficult script and all. Let me prove to you that I don’t need any help.”

“I’m sorry, but your co-head has already been chosen.”

“What is this, some kind of punishment?” Yael snaps, temper finally breaking through her strained composure. “What have I ever done to make you think I can’t handle this on my own?”

“It’s not a punishment,” Mrs. Brigman murmurs, the way people do before they give out a punishment.

“So you acknowledge that time and time again I’ve proven myself to be competent?”

“Remarkably so.”

“Then why do I need another drama head?” Yael demands.

“Let me assure you, it has nothing to do with competence. The job of drama head is twofold – there is the practical aspect of getting the lines learned and the play made, and there is the more subtle aspect of keeping everyone together and relatively happy. Although a very impressive human being, you are still only a human being, and two full-time jobs are simply too much for one person to do. This project needs two people who can complement each other to get the task done. I’ve consulted some of the other staff members on this and they’ve agreed.”

“Who is this mysterious ‘they’ you keep consulting? And what is _she_ doing here?” Yael asks suspiciously, inclining her head me-ward in her first acknowledgement of my presence since she got here.

The answers “nothing”, “I don’t know”, and “please don’t kill me” blurt themselves out of my mouth, one after the other. Yael’s lip curls a little.

“This is Mariyum Klein, your new co-head,” Mrs. Brigman says.

Yael laughs like the distant sound of children screaming in terror. “You must be joking.”

“I’m not known for my sense of humor,” Mrs. Brigman says. (This is true.) “No, I am not joking.”

“She’s in eleventh grade!”

“Senior jobs have already been distributed – there are no twelfth graders available.” Yael opens her mouth to protest, but Mrs. Brigman cuts her off. “You will be working with Mari whether you like it or not.”

Judging from Yael’s expression of barely-contained contempt, I’m going to go out on a limb and guess _not._

“I’ll leave you two get to know each other. Oh and Yael?” Mrs. Brigman pauses in her exit and looks hard at my new co-head. “ _Behave_.”

And then she leaves me to make nice with The Cactus. Traitor.

Yael stares after her for a while. Then she gives me the Satan Lady Eyes, and I cower inwardly. And, well, outwardly too. It’s not too obvious a cower though. No, it’s more like a… a very decisive and manful recoil. It is a cower for strong young women who don’t _have_ to run away from their scary co-heads.

But still _want_ to.

“Listen,” she says, which is funny because with my tongue pasted to the roof of my mouth in fear and all, that’s kind of all I was planning to do anyway. “I may be stuck with you _for now_. But that does _not_ mean that we’re friends. This is my play, and if you’re smart you’ll make sure it stays that way.”

She stands and struts – I am not exaggerating, she actually turns and does this honest-to-goodness strut – out of the office. “Yeah,” I call after her as forcefully as I can whilst semi-paralyzed with terror. “I was just about to—I also wish we were—‘cause I won’t put up with—uchhh, she’s too far away to hear me, isn’t she.”

“Yup,” says the secretary. She snaps her gum like the gunshot at the beginning of a race, so I get out of the office in a hurry, before she kicks me out.


	5. The Cactus and Me

**So long story short I blame it on the secretary when I get to class and realize** that I forgot to get an excused note for coming late.

Which means I have to run back to the office to ask for a note from the secretary, who looks at me like I’m asking her for fifty bucks, no-pay-backsies, then run back to class, where Mrs. Rosenberg points out that she didn’t actually sign the note, which sends me sprinting back to the office to get the signature (the secretary actually bares her teeth at me; I giggle nervously and do my best to avoid eye contact). Finally I get to class, signed excused note and all, and spend the rest of the period buzzing with poorly suppressed energy, not hearing a word the teacher is saying.

So, yeah, I may be a tad overeager when I bound over to Aiden and Leah Gittel the moment class ends and announce, “Guess who’s the new drama head!”

Aiden thinks about it. “Umm…Yael Weismann, right?”

“Yeah, but also me!” I say, probably way too loudly going by the looks people are shooting me.

Aiden laughs, then realizes I’m serious. “Wait. Really? Why did they choose _you_?” she asks, kind of rudely.

Stung and a bit defensive, I reply, “Why not?”

“Well, you’re only in eleventh grade for one… And other girls have had bigger parts in drama than you…” Translation: _I_ _’_ _ve_ had bigger parts in drama than you.

"I’m so proud of you, Mari!” Leah Gittel beams, looking truly happy for me. It’s probably easier for her than it is for Aiden, since Leah Gittel has no desire whatsoever to be drama head. Then she frowns. “So what’s bothering you?”

Have I also mentioned that Leah Gittel gets people? Because she does.

“Yael doesn’t like me,” I admit.

Both of them give me sympathetic looks. “Yael doesn’t like anybody,” says Leah Gittel.

“Yeah, but she _really_ doesn’t like me.”

“How can you tell?”

“Well, think about it! She pulled off this whole ruthless – and admittedly really clever – plan to get to be the only drama head, and then all of the sudden they’re like, ‘jokes, we decided to make this random eleventh grader your co-head!’”

“Well, okay…” Leah Gittel concedes.

“If she gives you a hard time, just tell me, I’ll give her a talking to,” Aiden says menacingly.

My friends are the best. I give them a grateful and do this anxiety thing that I should probably stop doing where I pull at my hair, mainly to give myself something to do with my hands. “I don’t blame her, really. This was totally out of the blue. Even I can’t figure out why they asked _me_ of all of people to take the position…”

 

*     *     *

 

“…Besides for that, I can’t even believe this is all really happening, and I have absolutely no time to come to terms with it, because tryouts are tomorrow! Can you imagine how disorienting that is? In the space of ten minutes I go from standing in line at tryouts to running the thing!”

“Mmm,” says the lady who drives my carpool. What’s her name again? Wilhelmina? Wilberta? Hm, no, that’s not it. Maybe it starts with K. I should probably know this after five years of driving with her every day.

“And, just between you and me?” I lower my voice. Carpool Lady’s five-year-old daughter watches curiously from the carseat next to me. “I’m really anxious about being a leader. I’m the least leader-y person I know!” A sudden fear grips me. “Am I going to have to yell at people? I really can’t yell at people… No, I bet Yael can take care of yelling at people. Ha. She’d be good at that.”

“Mmm.”

“Speaking of Yael, I’m going to have to be on my toes, because she’s just waiting for me to slip up so she can shunt me out of the job as soon as possible. But you know what? You know what?” Here I pause dramatically. “I’m not just gonna _get by_ , trying to manage things without messing up too badly. Oh no. I’m going to be a _great_ drama head! I’m going to be the best drama head anyone has ever seen! No way am I going to let her negativity get me down. Even though her negativity has, like, a serious gravitational pull, let me tell you…”

 

*    *     *

 

“…And the way her face gets when she doesn’t like you (and by you I mean me), it’s not just disapproval, it’s like…ancient disapproval.”

“What does that mean, exactly?” Mom asks.

“When she frowns at you, it’s like,” I search for the words, “it’s like all your honorable maternal ancestors appear in a poof of mystical smoke to help her make you feel bad, pointing their fingers at you all blamingly like, ‘Zis zpoiled Amerikan girl eez a deesapointment to ze fameely name!’”

“Honey, your honorable maternal ancestors were from Queens.”

“Mom! That’s so not the point! Are you even listening to me?”

“I always listen, but I never seem to understand,” she says in a heavy, resigned voice, as if she’s talking to somebody else.

“Yeah, well, if you think parenting’s hard, try going to high school.”

She raises her eyes briefly heavenward.

 “I’m telling Dad instead. He’ll get it,” I announce snootily. I flounce off to the living room, where my dad is working at the table.

“Mom doesn’t understand me,” I grouse, kicking at the carpet.

My dad looks at me with wide, unnerved eyes. Finally he says very slowly, as if getting this answer wrong spells illness, injury, and comprehensive death, “I’m…sorry…to hear that?”

“You don’t sound very sorry.”

His expression goes from unnerved to panicked. I let him off the hook. This time, anyway.

“I got asked to be drama head.”

“Is that good?” he asks.

“It’s very good,” I confirm.

“That’s great!” he says.

“Thanks, Dad! You always know exactly what to say, unlike some other parents.”

“Sounds like someone is making herself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for dinner,” Mom says pleasantly from the kitchen.

“I wasn’t talking about _you_! Duh. You’re the best!”

  
  


*     *     *

 

“…Which is also why Leonard the slow loris really belongs in the reptile house, but that’s a different story.” I pause to catch my breath. “Where was I?”

Yonah’s eyes are glazed over. “Uh,” he says.

“It was something about being drama head…”

“Oh. Yeah. You were telling me about how you’re going to be such an amazing drama head that even Yael will have to admit it. And bow to your splendor.”

“Rightrightright, and then she’ll be begging to be my friend! And I will accept,” I add magnanimously.

“Just to clarify, blackmail and kidnapping are in fact illegal,” Yonah says.

I cross my arms. “I'm not going to blackmail or kidnap her. I'm going to make her acknowledge me as an equal."

“Okay, but I'm not paying bail.”

 

*     *     *

 

I poke my head into Yonah and Menashe’s room where Menashe is reading a book about horses. “Guess what, Menashe! I’m going to be making the high school play this year!”

Menashe brightens immediately. “You know what else is happening this year? The Kentucky Derby! It includes 20 horses in two starting gates, and it’s called the Run for the Roses because the winner gets a crown with a rose on it to symbolize struggling and winning! If a horse wins all three races, it wins the Triple Crown! but only twelve people have ever done that. The most recent Triple Crown winner was this year, and he was the first one to win all three in almost forty years! He was called American Pharoah – the horse, not the rider – because he was bought from a raiser who –”

You know, it is so nice to have such a supportive family.

 

*     *     *

 

I walk into school the next morning like a kid who just won the lottery.

Well, I’ve never seen a kid win the lottery, so I can’t imagine how she would walk into school the next day – wait, no. That’s not true. I can totally imagine how I’d walk into school the morning after winning a bazillion dollars.

So there I am, my hair suddenly long and luxurious, bouncing in the breeze as I swagger into the building while onlookers stop and stare, their jaws literally dropping as they are filled with both awe and envy. I pause a few paces inside the doors to strike a pose, take off my favorite pair of diamond-studded sunglasses, and allow Steve, my coat guy, to remove my floor-length mink coat. Then I flash a smile to my adoring/deeply resentful audience, spread my arms wide, and declare, “Good mo’ning, da’lings!” (Of course, I have acquired a thick New York accent, to go with the coat.)

Peons and twelfth graders alike flatten themselves against the wall as I approach, or more accurately, as I _stride_ by in my solid gold five-inch heels toward the eleventh grade lockers with an air of impregnable confidence and grace. My loyal subjects – I mean servants – I mean employees hurry along behind me.

All throughout class they make themselves useful by fanning me with palm leaves, feeding me peeled grapes, and giving me a mani-pedi. Far from being annoyed about their presence, Mrs. Rosenstern finds it endearing – after all, I am very rich.

Then at lunchtime, they make me fresh, homemade food to my liking. I get to choose the lunch, the temperature, the plates... I even get to choose my employees’ names. I’ll call my hot dog guy Doug, my sushi guy Sue, and my ice cream guy Carl.

Meanwhile, Yael will watch me from afar with a combination of jealousy, admiration, and regret, cursing herself over and over, _why didn_ _’_ _t I become best friends with that super-cool-and-so-fashionable-and-self-assured girl when I had the chance?_

So. Um. Where was I?

Oh, yeah. Walking in the day after randomly becoming drama head. Thing is, it doesn’t just _feel_ like some overnight windfall that will completely change my life as I know it; that’s pretty much exactly what it is. Suddenly the girls who would brush by me in the hallways are greeting me with big friendly smiles. Suddenly the girls who used to say hi to me are giving me bitter, envious looks that they think I can’t see as I make my way through the school. Suddenly everyone loves black licorice and yellow laffy taffies! Everything is upside down! I shrink into myself, stare at my shoes, and will the walk to go faster.

I don’t think it goes faster, but it goes, and soon enough I’m hanging my stuff up in my locker when my peripheral vision catches on someone watching me from the twelfth grade lockers. Against my better judgment (and probably to the chagrin of Baba and every one of her survival training games), I turn to stare back at her.

I can’t place a name to her face, but I know who she is. There’s something about her that’s less hostile than some of the envious scowls I’ve been getting, but almost more personal. I shiver and tell myself to look somewhere else, anywhere else, but find I can’t drag my eyes away.

This is when Aiden rides in on a white horse wearing a blindingly shiny suit of armor in full-on overprotective Mama Bear mode. She nobly glares right back at the girl staring at me until the girl turns away.

“Thanks, Aiden,” I say gratefully, suddenly in a long, beautiful medieval dress, clasping my hands together in adoration of my hero.

“’Course,” she says, grinning and slinging an arm around my shoulders. “Only I’m allowed to intimidate you into giving me a part I don’t deserve.”

I laugh, and Aiden starts laughing too. The girl is looking at me again, but I don’t care as much anymore.

“C’mon,” says Aiden. “Davening is starting, like, now.”

So we’re on our way to davening when I notice Yael walking in the same direction, nodding to something one of the production heads is saying. I’m suddenly gripped with the irrational certainty that they’re talking about me, and before I know it, I’m waving and calling Yael’s name across the hallway, if only to distract her from the horrible lies she’s undoubtedly hearing about me and to replace them with the undeniable awesomeness of the real-life _Ma_ -to-the- _ri_.

She turns, realizes I’m the one calling her, and immediately turns away again.

I pout.

The production head laughs. They _are_ talking about me! I knew it! They exchange a few more words and then the production head is moving away. I take the opportunity to approach my new co-head/best-buddy-to-be.

When I get close enough, I call, “Hi!” My voice cracks.

This is when Yael does three things that I, in later months, will become extremely familiar with:

  1. Closes her eyes, pinches the bridge of her nose, and counts very slowly to ten
  2. Opens her eyes again and looks disappointed that I haven’t vanished into thin air
  3. Stares at me with a _well? what do you want_ kind of expression



“Eleven,” I supply helpfully.

 Yael smiles, very briefly and with far too many teeth, more shark than human. The back of my neck prickles. “Listen, Miri – ”

“Mari,” I mumble.

“ – it looks like there’s been some kind of miscommunication. I thought I was being quite clear, but maybe I have to simplify things a bit further for your veeeery small, perpetually confused brain: I. Do. Not. Want. To. Be. Friends. I do not want to see you. I do not want to talk to you outside of what’s necessary for the play, and even the thought of _that_ makes my teeth grind. I want as little as possible to do with you, if not less. Does that clarify things for you?”

I open my mouth to reply, but only a whimper comes out.

“ _Do you understand_?” she says again, her voice low and ominous. I think I can see my own hideous murder being played out if I look closely into her eyes.

“Yes,” I peep.

“Then get out of here! _Skedaddle!_ _”_

I skedaddle.

Yael is mean. I just wanted to get to know her a little before we start working together. It didn’t have to be about the play. We could’ve talked about school, or done a trust exercise, or just divulged our innermost feelings to each other. Also, I think I pulled a muscle in my hasty getaway.

I hobble over to my next class, where Aiden and Leah Gittel both look up as I collapse into my desk.

“More failed overtures of friendship with Yael?” Leah Gittel guesses in that annoyingly and slightly scarily accurate ESP way of hers.

“I’m gonna get through to her,” I mutter. “Just you wait.”

“I still can’t believe they dropped this bomb on you the day before tryouts.” Aiden shakes her head.

Right. Tryouts. _Tonight._ I swallow around the lump that’s suddenly formed in my throat. “You’re trying out, right, Aiden?” I ask, turning big pleading eyes on her.

“’Course!“ Aiden grins. “What, you think I’d miss out on the first opportunity to abuse my connections?” She hesitates. “Not that you need to give me a big part. Don’t feel pressured just because we’re, you know, super close friends.”

Well, that sounded about as sincere as those tech guys apologizing for putting you on hold for just a short couple of decades. But I’m glad that she said it, even if it does nothing to relieve the tension growing steadily in my gut.

 

*     *     *

 

By the time I show up (a whole two minutes early!) for 7:00 tryouts, there are a good eight or nine girls waiting in line outside the student lounge – or the “Loune,” as it’s been affectionately called since the G fell off the sign – where the drama tryouts are being held.

“Hey, no cutting,” a girl in the line says waspishly. I quickly push down the mental image of her as an actual wasp with a human face, partially because I don’t have time to space out and partially because it’s legitimately terrifying.

“I’m the other drama head,” I say in a small voice.

“Oh!” Her scowl abruptly changes into a friendly smile, with only the briefest flash of surprise in between. “Sorry about that. Go right on in… See you soon!”

“Yeah, see you soon,” I return weakly, trying to keep my head down as I pass the rest of the line.

Just as I’m about to slip inside the Loune, a hand catches on my sleeve. I look up into Leah Gittel’s smile. Aiden is trying not to laugh at me beside her.

“Chin up, Mari,” says Leah Gittel. “Your first audition sure is going to be, uh. Something.”

“How early did you guys have to get here to be first in line?” I ask them. Do you see this? I literally have the best friends in the entire world.

“You don’t even want to know,” said Aiden ominously.

“Yael is waiting for you,” Leah Gittel adds, opening the door and giving me a little push. “Break a leg.”

“Shouldn’t I be saying that to you?”

“Not with that audience,” Aiden replied, jerking her head toward Yael.

They both give me the thumbs up as I head inside. Yael is in fact waiting for me. “I see punctuality isn’t your strong suit,” she says. “I was going to start without you.”

She doesn’t sound annoyed that I didn’t come early; she sounds annoyed that I showed up at all. “Well, sorry,” I reply, stung.

Yael makes a _tchh_ noise in the back of her throat, like a verbal eye-roll, and directs her attention back to the legal pad on her lap.

I settle into the seat next to her with no small amount of trepidation. Look, I get that she isn’t thrilled to share her job, and I get that we’re not exactly the most similar of people, but does she really have to be so mean about it? Even if she has no interest in being friends, wouldn’t she want a peaceful working relationship? I have no idea what she’s thinking, and it’s not like I can just ask her, but…but, there has to be a person in there, under all those prickly cactus spines. Right? Right??

I frown and stare hard at Yael in the hopes I’ll be able to see through her, past the crunchy outer shell of derision to the soft, mushy center. Yael the M&M.

Leah Gittel doesn’t like M&M’s, because she doesn’t like chocolate, which just makes absolutely no sense to me. M&M’s are delicious. More precisely, they are literally MM. How can anyone dislike something that is definitionally _MM_?

“What is _that?”_ Yael demands. I follow her line of vision to the My Little Pony notebook in my hand. It isn’t just _any_ My Little Pony notebook, though – it is a Princess Celestia notebook, and everybody knows Princess Celestia is the prettiest pony.

“It is my notebook,” I say, unnecessarily, because she knows what it is, and I know that she knows what it is. And she knows that I know that she knows what it is. And I know that she… well, you know. “My Little Notebook,” I can’t help but add.

"Your little notebook with a little cartoon pony on the cover. How _old_ are you?"

She doesn’t like cartoons? "You don't like cartoons?” She doesn’t contradict this sacrilegious suggestion. I am at a (very momentary, never you fear) loss for words. “So what _do_ you like? Drowning puppies? Vandalizing orphanages? Cutting the brake lines of little old ladies’ cars?"

"How did you guess?"

I stare at her in horror.

She sighs. “I’m joking.”

“I…I knew that.”

“Of course you did.” The corner of her mouth twitches in a distinctly upward motion. Someone (namely, Not Me) might even categorize it – very, very tentatively and with the vague feeling of impending retribution for a fiendish sin – as a smile. Maybe a smirk is more accurate.

“All right,” she says. “Time to see what our school has to offer.”

And with that, she gestures for the first group to enter.


	6. Trying (Out) Times

And in walk Aiden and Leah Gittel.

“Sign in and take a script,” Yael tells them. “Turn to page 5. You…” – she glances at the sign-in sheet – “Leah Gittel, you’ll read Breindel’s lines, and Aiden, you’ll read Savta.”

Aiden flips to the page and starts scanning it. “What about Shmerel?”

I raise my hand to offer to read it, but Yael doesn’t even glance at me. “I’ll do it.”

I lower my hand awkwardly. Leah Gittel’s eyes dart between Yael and I.

“Well?” Yael prompts. “Any decade now would be nice.”

Leah Gittel startles, flushing. “Oh! Sorry. Umm… uh… Okay. Okay. ‘Oh, Savta,’” she says, giving Aiden a beseeching look that might be asking how, exactly, she got dragged into this. “’Life must have been so much simpler when you were growing up on the shtetl. Now, we are faced, not only, with famine and poverty, that threaten our _physical_ existence, but, even worse! with a terrible Enlightenment that threatens our spiritual survival.’”

“’Unfortunately, Breindel, sheifele, neither famine nor poverty nor assimilation are new innovations.’” Aiden frowns at the script. “That’s redundant. Innovations are new by definition.”

Yael raises one eyebrow at her. “Did I ask for commentary?”

Aiden fidgets. “No, ma’am. I mean sir. I mean Yael. I mean—”

“Just read.”

“Hoo-kay,” says Aiden, mainly to herself. “Here goes just reading. ‘From the beginning of our history it has been our job to resist the outside goyishe influences. Though now circumstances seem especially dire, we still have the strength to do just as we have always done.’”

“’That is true,’” says Yael as Shmerel. “’Just as Avraham Avinu threw himself into a fiery furnace for his beliefs, we, too, can have absolute emunah.’”

“’Just as you told me, Savta,’” Leah Gittel recites, still looking highly uncomfortable. “’As long as we have our faith, no harm can come to us. Hashem yisborach will always light our way.’”

Aiden-as-Savta gives Leah Gittel an encouraging pat on the shoulder. “That’s right, sheifele. And now, with our emunah steady and our eyes uplifted, we can persevere through this terrible trial, against all odds.’” She pauses. “Oh, I see, ‘cause the play’s called Against All Odds. That’s cute.”

“Adorable,” says Yael dryly. “The two of you can go.”

“Already?” they ask in unison, Leah Gittel overjoyed and Aiden apprehensive.

“Tell the next group we’ll motion to them when we’re ready,” Yael replies.

“All right… ‘Bye,” says Leah Gittel with a small wave.

“’Bye, Mari,” says Aiden.

The door closes behind them and Yael turns to me. “What did you write?”

I turn my notebook to her so she can see for herself. “It’s a turtle arguing with a ladybug.”

She doesn’t respond; goes eerily silent, actually, so I explain, “Look, here’s the turtle, he’s saying, ‘Fear me! I will eat you!’ and then the ladybug says, ‘Dude, you’re not scary, you don’t even have…’ um… I think that says ‘teeth,’ sorry, my handwriting’s kinda hard to read. So then the turtle says, ‘I will GNAW you!’”

When I look up at Yael, her jaw is locked into this terrifying half-smile, half-snarl. “What did you write about the _tryout_?”

Oh! Uhh…. “I thought they were really good!” I tell her earnestly. “Both of them should get in. With big parts.”

Yael looks unimpressed. “As a drama head you have to think about who is good at acting and who is not. You can’t give all your friends the big parts just because you don’t want to make them feel bad. If your aim is to give people happy, fuzzy feelings, you’d do better to quit drama and go for chessed instead.”

I try to imagine what it would be like to be chessed head, making people feel good by giving them the biggest parts in drama.

There I am, chessed head and official feel-good maker extraordinaire, running madly down a hallway full of high school girls. As I pass Leah Gittel I tell her, “Guess what? You’re the main part!”

“Yay!” Leah Gittel cheers.

Then I pass Aiden. “Guess what? _You_ _’_ _re_ the main part!”

“Yay!” Aiden cheers.

“Hey guys! You’re the main part!” I tell Sara Chana, Tzippy, and that kid whose name I can’t remember for the life of me but whose face I recognize from seeing her every now and then at random places like Target and the dentist’s office.

"Yay!” they reply.

I stop at the end of the hallway, spread my arms wide, and announce exultantly, “EVERYONE is the main part!”

There is a collective “YAY!” from the general populace.

So, now that we have our cast, how is this going to work? Will _everyone_ be on stage the whole time? Will they all be saying different things? Maybe they’ll all say the same lines in unison, which would be… kind of creepy, actually. I would call it _Rise of the Zombie Horde: the Musical._

“Maybe everyone will have the main part, but some people will have bigger main parts than others,” I muse. I catch Yael staring at me like I’m insane. “What?”

“Never mind,” she mutters, then gestures for the girls waiting outside. “Next!”

I know neither of the girls who walk in personally, but one of them is that senior who was giving me the stink-eye yesterday. For a second I think she’s doing it again, before I realize that the thick, cold tension that has descended is between her and Yael. I look at Yael, who looks at the sign-in sheet they’ve both just autographed, who looks nowhere, because it’s a sign-in sheet.

I lean over to her and mutter under my breath, “Is it awkward in here or is it just me?”

She ignores me. “Turn to page 48. Yaffa, you can play Shmerel. Hadassah, you can do Breindel.”

“When should we begin?” Yaffa asks.

“Anytime you’re ready.”

“’Shmerel?’” Hadassah calls. “’Shmerel!’”

At once I see the role isn’t going to be right for her. Hadassah’s voice is low, strong, and distinctive, contrasting with the mild, soft-spoken character she’s playing. I poke Yael in the arm to share this with her, but she just bats me away absently, her full attention on the pair performing for us.

“’Yes, Breindel?’” Yaffa replies, and yeah, that role isn’t good for her, either; Yaffa has a soft, high-pithed voice that could never be mistaken as male.

“’What are you doing, sitting there in the dark? Is there something wrong?’”

“’Oh, Breindel,’” Shmerel sighs, “’so many things.’”

I want to tell them to stop and try different, more suitable roles, but I don’t want to incite Yael’s wrath any more than my existence already does. Surely she also realizes these aren’t good roles – she must have a reason for letting it continue like this.

To my surprise, it is Hadassah who calls the scene to a halt. “These parts aren’t good for either of us.”

A brief expression of frustration passes across Yael’s face, and then she sighs. “That’s true. They aren’t quite right.”

“What a surprise,” Hadassah mutters.

Yael’s jaw tightens. “Switch parts, then.”

“What?”

“Switch parts. You do Breindel, you do Shmerel. Pick up the scene where you left off.”

“’There’s…there’s something I need to tell you,’” Hadassah says as Shmerel, and immediately there is a sense of rightness about the performance. “’It’s not going to be easy to hear…’”

“’What is it, Shmerel?’” our new Breindel asks.

 “’It’s the money we were saving so we could send Yankel to yeshiva…’”

“’The money? Oh, Shmerel, what happened to it?’”

“That’s fine,” says Yael, looking pleased. “You can go.”

The enthusiasm that had warmed Hadassah’s acting as she became the character abruptly drains away. A great and terrible awkwardness descends once more upon its unsuspecting victims. No one makes eye contact with each other as Yaffa and Hadassah leave the Loune.

Once they’re gone, I do a full-body shiver dance to shake off the lingering traces of awkward.

“What was –” I begin, at the same time that Yael calls, “Next!” I glare at her, and she – surprise, surprise – ignores me.

In walks the wasp girl who confronted me earlier about cutting, and some other kid, who sign in as Pessy and Sara, respectively.

“Just to make things clear,” the wasp girl – Pessy – says, “I only want to get put in drama if I can get a big part. If not, I’d rather be in choir.”

Yael looks at Sara, bemused. “Are _you_ here with demands too?”

Sara shrugs. “Actually I just want to get into dance. I’m only here because they said we had to try out for three things.”

“I’m a dancer too,” I inform her.

“Yeah? Were you in dance last year?”

“No…I’m the kind of dancer who doesn’t, you know, actually _dance_ so much…or, like… ever? But I bought a pair of leg warmers last week, so…”

“Oh,” says Sara.

Yael is pinching the bridge of her nose. “When you’re done having a completely irrelevant conversation, the two of you can turn to page 102 and start at ‘Have you heard.’ Sara, you can play Maids 1, 2, and 3, and Pessy, you can play The Duchess.”

Sara reads off the top of the page, “’After the death of her father, the Duchess overhears her maids discussing the last days of his life.’ All right.” And then in one moment she transforms from a bored high school girl trying out for a part she doesn’t want to a young, impulsive maid working for a wealthy family, eager to share a juicy bit of gossip. “’Have you heard? Did Elizabeth tell you what she heard the Baron telling his lawyer just before he passed?’”

WOW, she’s good. I glance at Yael for confirmation and sure enough, she’s leaning forward on her elbows, watching Sara with interest.

When I look back at the performer, Pessy is pretending to listen at an imaginary door with a hand cupped to her ear and her eyes comically wide, but my eyes are drawn to Sara, who has effortlessly become distinctly frazzled, more impatient. “Don’t let the Duchess hear you saying that! You could fired for spreading the late Baron’s secrets.’” And then Sara is Maid 3, trying to be professional but unwillingly intrigued by the news. “’Yes, if you’re going to say it, then say it quickly, before she comes back. What did Elizabeth hear him say?’” And then she’s back to Maid 1, who smugly declares, “He mentioned his wife. The Duchess’s mother.”

Pessy gasps loudly and bursts into tears.

“Are you okay?” I ask, alarmed.

The tears are gone as quickly as they’d come. “Of course I’m okay!” Pessy scowls. “I was channeling my character. She’s very upset.”

“Oh,” I say, feeling dumb. “Do you… Does your character want a tissue?”

Pessy glares at me and irritably wipes a lingering tear from her cheek.

“Thank you, the two of you can go,” Yael says, and begins scribbling something on her legal pad.

“I haven’t even read a single line!” Pessy protests.

Yael murmurs something unintelligible (which is probably for the best), Sara and Pessy having clearly been dismissed as far as she’s concerned.

Pessy _hmph_ s and stomps away angrily. Sara follows her out.

“What did you write?” I ask Yael when she’s done with her notes.

"What did you think of them?” Yael replies instead of answering.

I thought Sara was excellent and Pessy was kind of unnerving, but I don’t want to say anything wrong. “I asked you first.”

Yael lets out a long sigh. “Next!” she calls to the girls waiting outside.

“Hey!” I protest, but the next group is already entering and – yep, I’ve completely lost my co-head’s attention. I slump down in my chair and resign myself to the beackseat I’ve apparently been shunted to.

And so the night goes on. And on. Some of the tryouts are good, some are bad, some are ugly. Most of them, though, are just dead boring, and I’ve had the same song on loop in my head for the past half-hour. Distantly I hear the current tryout reciting lines, while my brain croons, _yeeeiish tikvaaah, im nashir kulanu yaaachad_ _…_ My pen scrapes along the table in time with the internal singing - scrape scrape scrape, scrape-scrape-scrape scrape-scrape scrape scraaaaape-scrape…

Yael flips to a new page of her legal pad. I watch curiously as she bends to write something on it, then tilts it toward me. _Stop it, or I_ _’_ _ll stop you._

I stop it and lean back in my chair, deeply unsettled.

By the time eight o’clock has rolled around, my brains are oozing out my ears and I feel like I’ve been watching tryouts for approximately 70 years, like Rip van Winkle or something, just sitting here half-conscious, growing a luxurious beard while the world goes on changing and developing and inventing artificial intelligence that, downside: inevitably turns around and kills everyone but, upside: actually ends up creating a way better society-slash-robot utopia on the island of Fiji.

“Earth to Mari, come in, Mari,” Yael’s annoyed voice breaks into my sad and yet somehow hopeful daydream, “What, exactly, are you doing?”

 _Nothing,_ says my brain. “Growing a beard,” says my mouth.

“What?”

“What?” I demand Mouth, because that is an excellent question. Uncharacter-istically, it has no response.

Luckily, Yael lets it drop, and calls in the next pair: a girl from my class named Raizel and…well…Tsirel.

Listen, before Leah Gittel and Aiden came along, I didn’t exactly have tons of friends. Or, okay— _any_ friends. So obviously I jumped on it when Tsirel approached me with a smile approaching me during second grade on the playground and offered to play a make-believe game. Also, make believe games were – _are_ – my favorite.

“What do you want to make believe?” I asked eagerly.

She seemed to think about it. “Let’s pretend we’re ninjas, and we’re fighting to the death.” Before I could really register what was happening, I was doubled over from the pain in my stomach, and Tsirel’s fist was unclenching. She surveyed me with mild curiosity as I held my stomach and gasped for breath.

I found very quickly that I did not like this game of make believe.

“I want to quit my job as a ninja,” I told Tsirel the next day.

“You can’t quit. If you quit I’ll tell everyone that you’re a quitter and no one will ever play with you again. If it weren’t for me, no one would even be playing with you now.” Which was true.

So the make-believe games continued for a while.

I’m abruptly brought back to reality by Tsirel’s low voice saying, “I’m playing Rikkel you said, right?”

I blink. Rikkel is the seven-year-old shtetl girl. I briefly consider telling Yael that her casting is lousy but imagine the look on Yael’s (and Tsirel’s) face and think better of it. Better they find out on their own, probably.

“’Ima,’” Tsirel says in her flat, deep voice. “Don’t leave me. Please don’t leave, Ima. I’m scared.” I can’t hide my wince.

Luckily Yael can’t either, so I’m not the only one on the business end of Tsirel’s scowl. “Let’s try something else,” Yael mutters, and they do.

Once Tsirel and Raizel are gone and I’ve begun to breathe properly again, Yael turns to me with that flinty look in her eyes.

“What?” I ask, my stomach sinking. Had she somehow figured out what had happened in second grade between Tsirel and I? Is Yael a mind reader? Is she a hypnotist? Is she going to enter my subconscious to plant in my mind the idea to break up my father's corporate empire in order to benefit  her own client's company and to have a chance at regaining everything she's ever loved?

“You knew that role wouldn’t work for her deep voice,” Yael says instead. “I saw you open your mouth.”

“Oh,” I say. “Yeah.” What does she want from me, exactly? “Sorry?” I hazard.

Yael blows out a hard breath and calls in the next group.

So goes yet more tryouts, with special features including: four girls who can’t read their lines because they’re giggling too hard; two girls who want to stick around and help us do tryouts (you can guess how Yael feels about _that_ idea), eighteen girls who accidentally walk away with the scripts, thirty-five girls saying the same few lines over and over, and one Mari who is seriously considering committing tragic and yet honorable harikari on her mechanical pencil if tryouts don’t end soon.

At long last it’s just about freedom o’clock, and the last drama hopeful arrives - a girl from my class named Rivky who I know for a fact has a fantastic voice.

“Not that we don’t want you here or anything,” I say tentatively, the first time I’d spoken up since after Tsirel’s tryout, “but why aren’t you trying out for choir?”

She sighs, takes the spare script off the desk, and begins rifling through it. “I know, I know, if Hashem gave me a good voice I should be in choir and use it to benefit other people, right? I’m trying out for choir too. But the truth is, I’ve always wanted to act. I think I might be pretty good at it.”

“All right, let’s see what you’ve got,” says Yael. She’s made herself comfortable, titling her chair backwards at an angle that looks both ridiculously cool and rather dangerous. She flips to a random page. “We’ll start you off with Rikkel, one of the main characters. Give us a couple of her lines from page 67.”

Rivky nods. I pretend my pencil is an oddly straight and plastic-y mustache while she finds the place. I feel like my face was destined for a mustache. Then again, they’re really hard to balance on my upper lip without using my hands…

Rivky clears her throat and reads aloud, “’Papa, I don’t understand. Why must we leave the shtetl?’”

I’m not proud to admit this, but I just flat-out _stare_ at her. I’ve heard more girls recite these very lines than I cared to count, but none of them even came close to the degree of toneless beige that was Rivky’s acting skills. Her voice is so horribly monotonous it is, in a weird way, absolutely fascinating.

“’I’m scared, Papa,’” she recites flatly. “’What will become of us?’”

I’ve heard enough. I sneak a glance over at Yael, to see if she’s about to stop Rivky from mangling the script any further, but my co-head is on another planet, looking intently at her script. I look at the same page on _my_ script; it doesn’t offer me any suggestions. I hope it’s giving Yael whatever it is she’s trying to find.

Rivky is still reading. My ears are about ten seconds away from going on formal strike. Yael is still far, far away, so I take a deep breath and nervously cut in, “Good, thank you so much, um. I want to try something a bit different. If you turn back a bit to page 55,” I tell Rivky, “you’ll see Yankel’s lines… right, good. Go ahead and read a few of those.”

Rivky compliantly clears her throat, then says in a slightly lower, but equally emotionless voice, “’We have to stay strong, and always remember our _Tatte in himmel_ , my sweet Perele. That is the only way we can hope to get through this terrible ordeal.’”

It takes all of my available self-control to not look at her with the horrified awe I’m feeling. Yael still isn’t contributing to the situation, so I suggest as mildly as I possibly can, “Yes, great, um… Now why don’t we try out Boy Three?”

Rivky looks at me sharply. Brave in the face of confrontation as always, I skid my line of focus to a spot on her chin so I don’t have to make direct eye contact with her. “Page 106,” I squeak. She stares at me (or I think she stares at me, it’s hard to tell out of the corner of my eye) before turning to the page and intoning blankly, “’Look, the Rebbe has returned, I told you he wouldn’t leave us.” The fact that in the script that line is punctuated with several exclamation points doesn’t seem to bother her.

I tap my pencil against my notepad, frantically spinning through the possible ways to cap off this audition while being both sensitive to her feelings and _not_ lying through my teeth.

Fortunately – or really, more unfortunately – Yael chooses this moment to return to the land of the cognizant. “Congratulations,” she says. “You are the very _worst_ actress I have ever seen, and for a Bais Yitzchak audition, that’s really saying something.” My co-head closes the script she’d been staring at with a _snap._

There is a long, awful moment of silence during which Rivky and I stare at Yael in horror.

Yael gives Rivky a dazzling smile. “Have a great time in choir.”

 

*     *     *

 

Of three things I am absolutely certain. First, that Yael has serious personality issues. Second, that I have a crippling inability to deal with conflicts of any kind or flavor, and by extension an inability to deal with people like Yael. And third, that sometimes my internal dialogue sounds an awful lot like certain teen fantasy novel protagonists.

After Rivky finishes her tryout, Yael and I wait around in the Loune in silence for ten more minutes to make sure no one else wanted to try out. When no one shows up, Yael turns to me and says, “That’ll be all, then. We’ll go over the list tomorrow.”

I shrug.

Her dark eyes narrow. She closes her notepad with a sigh and says, “Okay, I’ll bite. What’s wrong with you?”

“Nothing,” I mumble. If anything that just makes her more annoyed.

“If you didn’t want to tell me about it, you wouldn’t make it so obvious that you were upset,” she says. “Now, what is this hissy fit about?”

“You’re suddenly so interested in my opinion,” I mutter.

“Ah,” she says, looking the tiniest bit…pleased? “So you _do_ have half a brain.”

I stare at her, uncomprehending.

Yael raises an eyebrow at my dumbstruck expression. “All right, maybe more like a fifth,” she amends.

“Okay, fine,” I say, my frustration bursting at last. “You really want to know? You were really nasty to Rivky. To a lot of those girls! Just last year you were trying out for a part in drama, probably nervous and hopeful just like all of them, and yet somehow now that you’re in a position of power you’re totally dismissive!” I breathe hard for a few moments, feeling oddly detached from my own body. I mean, I haven’t blown up like this at anyone since middle school.

“Oh, Mira,” says Yael with a sickly-sweet smile. “That’s so _nice_ of you.”

“It’s…Mari,” I begin, but Yael is already plowing onward.

“You are just so _nice_ ,” she gushes. ”It is so sweet that _now_ you decide you can make decisions and take some responsibility for what happens in this production.”

“What?” I gape. “When did I say I _wasn_ _’_ _t_ taking responsibility for the play?”

“How about throughout this entire evening? If you recall, _I_ was watching the tryouts, _I_ was suggesting the parts, _I_ was taking notes. While _you_ ” – she jabs a finger at me and I instinctively recoil – “were doodling, spacing out, and singing _songs_ in your head the whole time! That’s not the way a person acts when they know they’re responsible for casting a play. That’s not the way a drama head acts.”

So I’m standing there trying to stammer out an appropriately cutting response and doing my best to block out everything Yael just said because something in it smells like truth and I’m just not ready to deal with that nonsense. Finally I manage a, “I wasn’t the only one spacing out! What about you, at the end?”

She scoffs. “I wasn’t spacing out. I took a step back from the tryout to see if you would step up to the plate, but in the end you just left the difficult part to me anyway. Sorry if I’m not _nice_ like you, but I’m getting a job done.”

I grit my teeth. “You can’t treat people like they’re garbage. Especially not when that person is the other drama head.”

And Yael just calmly gathers her notebook and purse and sweeps out of the room. “I’ll start treating you like a drama head when you start acting like one.”

 

*     *     *

 

“Well…well, I’ll start treating you like a nice human being when _you_ start acting like one!”

“What was that?” my mom calls through my bedroom door.

“Uh – nothing, Mom!” I yell back.

“Another belated comeback?” she asks.

I glower at the history textbook I had been trying to do homework from. “No!” And then, “Maybe,” I mutter to myself.

“You tell ‘em, dear,” says my mom.

I flush angrily, glaring at Chapter 6, Section 2: _The World Turned Upside Down_ , the same section heading I’d been staring at for forty minutes. But, man, it’s _hard_ to care about eighteenth century colonial unrest when in two short days my personal world has been turned upside down. How is this play ever going to happen if I’m allergic to confrontation, and Yael deals with any given problem by yelling it away?


	7. What Happens When Yael Can’t Yell It Away

**"Mari, you need to eat something.** **”**

I groan and push away the cheese stick Leah Gittel is dangling in my face. “Thanks, but I’m not hungry.”

Leah Gittel frowns.

“She’s not hungry,” says Aiden.

“But her body still needs nutrients!”

“I’m not hungry,” I grump, even though it comes out like ‘mmnot hngwe’ because my cheek is pressed into my palm. “I’m _sad_.”

“Want some of my apple?” Aiden offers, either not understanding or not caring about my previous sentiment.

“Nah,” I reply. “Apples are the smuggest of fruits.”

Leah Gittel and Aiden nod in understanding. You know you’ve been friends with someone too long when you object to the relative arrogance of certain fruits and they’re just like, ‘oh yeah, seriously, don’t you hate that?’

“If you’re not going to eat, at least tell us what’s wrong,” Leah Gittel wheedles.

“I don’t want to say lashon hara.” Aiden and Leah Gittel exchange a significant look. “What?”

“We were talking yesterday,” says Aiden, which are the second-to-worst four words to hear from your best friends, right after ‘we have to talk.’ “About why you might have gotten picked to be drama head.”

“Not that you aren’t qualified,” Leah Gittel says quickly.

“See, Yael is what we call a piece of work,” Aiden explains. “And you’re kind of pushover…” (“Hey!” I protest.) “Look, we’re just saying, maybe they chose you because nobody else would put up with her.”

“I didn’t say it quite like that,” Leah Gittel says with a sheepish smile.

I rub my face wearily. “Yeah, about that… I’m not sure even I can put up with her…”

 

*     *     *

 

“What? You want to quit?”

I shrug and duck my head so I don’t have to see Ms. Silvowitz’s concerned expression. “Yeah. Can we pretend I’m already mortified enough as it is and we don’t need to stage a whole interrogation about it?”

She frowns, but thankfully drops her gaze from me to the #1 Teacher bobble-head on her desk. “I wish we could,” she says after a moment, “but as the production supervisor as well as your Navi teacher, I can’t just ignore the fact that you’re clearly miserable.”

I try to give her a who-me? kind of face, which probably just makes me look more pathetic. “I’d be a lot less miserable if I weren’t drama head,” I point out. “Which is why I want to quit.”

“And I would absolutely let you. If you were one-hundred-percent sure you won’t be _more_ miserable for quitting.”

I open my mouth, realize I’m not sure, not even a little bit, and close it again.

Ms. Silvowitz leans forward on her folded hands. “Mariyum,” she says, and someday I’m really going to tell her that nobody, including Baba, calls me that. “What happened that made you want to quit so quickly?”

So I tell her everything, in one big rush of angst, like if I take a breath I’ll psyche myself out. I tell her about how Mrs. Brigman offered blah blah blah and I was just so blah excited but also kind of scared of blah blah blah and Yael clearly hates me for not taking responsibility and blahhh and the worst part is she might be _right._

“That’s,” Ms. Silvowitz replies, blinking, after a saintly period of patient listening. “That’s a lot.”

“There’s no reason for me to stay. So it’s okay if I quit?” I ask a bit desperately, suddenly feeling super awkward about spilling my guts to a teacher, of all people. Even if it _is_ Ms. Silvowitz.

“Let me give you a piece of advice…”

“Never get attached to fictional dogs?” I guess.

“That too,” she says. “But also, you have to stop assuming this is all about you. Yael is going through some issues of her own.”

“Like what?” I ask, curious despite myself.

“Has it occurred to you that maybe she’s purposefully being mean to _make_ you quit?”

“That—” is ridiculous, I want to say, but the more I think about it, the less ridiculous it seems. I wouldn’t be the first person she’s tried this technique on. “—makes a lot of sense.”

Ms. Silvowitz grins. “Just a thought. Do you maybe…want to sit on this decision for a while?”

 

*     *     *

 

I decide to sit on the decision for a while (not literally, though—it’s one of those cheap, plastic decisions like the ones you buy at Claire’s and I wouldn’t want to smush it), so I guess Ms. Silvowitz’s approach worked, although I suspect what she was trying to do was make Yael more human and therefore more sympathetic, when in actuality it made me want to stick around purely to be contrary.

Still, while I can, in fact, be an impressively petty little brat when called for, it’s hard to say how long I’ll manage to stay with this drama head thing with my current plan made of a dash of bad luck, a pinch of bad coping skills, and essence of spite.

I’m getting my stuff together for math class at my locker when someone comes up behind me and says, “Mari.”

“What’s crack-a-lackin’, homeslice?” I reply automatically into my locker, before turning around and realizing who I’m speaking to.

Yael gives me a long, pointed look. “I came to talk about casting but if you’d like while I’m here we could review how much I wish I had nothing to do with you.”

“Uh, no, that’s fine...” I think I have that part down anyway. “What’s up?”

“I assume you want to look over the casting list,” she says, shoving a folded piece of paper at me.

“You do?” I ask, surprised and kind of flattered, until I open the paper and realize she literally wanted me to look _over_ the casting list. That she’s already finished.

“But—“ I begin weakly.

“If you have any corrections to make, I’d be more than happy to hear them,” Yael says, like she’d be more than happy to hear them immediately prior to my short and sticky demise.

Luckily for my continued existence, I scan the list and find nothing to disagree with. She’s gven the main part of Breindel to Simi, a classmate of mine and the nicest girl anybody’s ever met. Hadassah is cast as Shmerel, Breindel’s husband, while the part of the Duchess goes to Rinana, a tenth grader whose tryout was excellent despite an exceptionally giggly start. I notice happily that Aiden has been given the part of Savta, one of the main roles. Yael’s also cast Sara, the wonderful actress who’d wanted to be in dance, as Ms. Ida, the bad guy. Sheesh. Ms. Ida. What kind of bad guy is named Ida? Ida is the name of the old ladies who tell you to stop talking in shul and stop breathing too loud in shul and stop concentrating too loud in shul and then when you get engaged you’re supposed to be best friends with them by virtue of their, like, developing you for wifehood or something.

Anyway, that’s what my married cousin says. Yeah I’m friends with adult people, whatever, no big deal. I’m just saying, I know things.

When I look up from the list, Yael is studying me with an unreadable expression. “You know, if it upsets you that I’ve done all the casting on my own without consulting you, you don’t have to put up with it. Being drama head,” she adds when I don’t reply.

For my part, I’m just staring at Yael in wonder, because huh. Ms. Silvowitz was right. And then my mind kind of slips by that thought and into an endless, grassy field under a sprawling, cloudless gray-blue sky. There’s no sound except for the shift of the wind as it plays with my hair and tousles the grass. There might be music playing in the background. I think I recognize it from Dance Dance Revolution. _Ayy-ayy-ayy, I_ _’_ _m your little butterflyyy_ _…_

Oh, and then there’s the sound of Yael shouting, “Come in, Miri! Earth to Miri!”

I abruptly stop humming. “Err,” I mutter, trying to refocus on my present conversation and present company. “Fine.”

She raises both eyebrows. “Fine, as in, fine, you’ll quit?”

“No, fine, as in, I’m fine.”

Yael crosses her arm, her sscowl only deepening. “Are you trying to prove a point or something?”

She’s onto me! “Nah, it’s just who I am,” I assure her. “Like it said on my preschool report card, I am stubborn, imaginative, and enjoy the taste of glue.”

Yael shakes her head. “You are truly in a class of your own.”

I beam. “Thanks!”

“That wasn’t a compliment.”

Oh.

“Finish reading,” she says impatiently.

The rest are smaller parts (I swallow hard as my eyes catch on the name “Tsirel”) and one-liners, followed by a short list of girls not attached to parts, presumably to substitute for the girls we’ll lose in the negotiations between all the play heads. At the very bottom she’s written “Bayley?”

This is when Yael spots a classmate of hers in the hallway. “Bayley,” she calls, and I realize she’s addressing the question mark next to the final name on her list. “You didn’t come to tryouts. I’ve just finished the casting list, but you can still try out if you want. We can see what can be moved around.”

“Oh! Yael,” Bayley greets her, flashing teeth so white I kind of want to cover my eyes and whimper. “I’m going to be added as one of the production heads. So I guess you’ll be working under me.” She giggles, and I suddenly get this sinking feeling about…everything. Existing in the general area, basically.

“Is that so,” Yael murmurs, raising her eyebrows.

Bayley flips her perfect blonde hair over her perfect blonde shoulder and smiles at Yael apologetically. “Maybe if I have time in between being production head, I can help you guys out by playing a part. I just don’t know if I can make a commitment to a…more minor aspect of the play right now.”

Yael’s temper is actually kind of impressive in that it is always ready for action at a moment’s notice, like a minuteman, or a microwave waffle. And as I watch my co-head’s anger bake to a lovely golden brown, I think about how you can find something impressive about everyone if you just look hard enough. Take Bayley for example: she may seem like a complete power-grubber, you know, just from what I know about her so far, but she also has a really cool and unusual name. I assume it’s a creative spin on Bayla, so yeah, kudos to Mr. and Mrs. Bayley. After all, it’s not every day that you meet someone with two _y_ ’s in her first name.

Lost in my musings, I hadn’t noticed that Bayley had flounced away. “I hate her,” says Yael.

“One _y_ is perfectly respectable, don’t be jealous.”

Yael looks at me. “Oh, Mari, you’ve got -“ she gestures to her mouth. I quickly clap a hand over my own.

“I have stuff in my teeth?” I ask behind my hand.

“No, but you have… I don’t even know, just _loads_ of nonsense coming out of there. You should probably go somewhere private and get it all out before somebody sees.”

I give her my best that-was-mean-now-be-ashamed-of-yourself face, which she sees and raises me an I’m-not-sorry-but-even-if-I-was-I-wouldn’t-apologize-because-you-really-just-need-to-grow-a-backbone face. Actually, that might be her default expression.

“She’d be willing to _’_ _help me out_ _’_ by playing a part,” she huffs. “Like I need her to be in drama!”

“Help _us_ out by playing a part,” I correct her. She looks at me blankly. “She used the plural. You know. For drama head _ssss_? Because there are two of us?”

“And calling it a more minor aspect of the play? What does that even mean? Drama is literally the play!”

“Well, plus dance and choir and song-dance and backstage and—”

“She’s probably lying about working with the production heads to begin with. That would be just like her.”

“You know what I love about our relationship?” I remark. “We have great communication.”

She levels a barbed look at me. “Were you saying something?”

“I was.”

“Well, stop it.”

“Okey-dokey.”

“Anyway,” she sighs, pulling the list from my slack fingers, “are we done here? You don’t have any pointless, irrational objections to my casting, right?”

“Um, well, I –”

“Not a question, Mari.”

I frown, stung. “You know, this may come as a shock to you, but you don’t _have_ to be so mean.”

“I’m not being mean,” she responds. “There are things I don’t like about you, and there are things you don’t like about me.”

I stare back at her blankly.

“But mainly there are things I don’t like about you,” she finishes.

“There’s…” My throat gives up on me mid-word, so I clear it and try again. “I have one objection, I guess.”

Yael crosses her arms and raises a oh- _do_ -you-now? eyebrow.

I look at my shoes. They’re nice shoes. Silver with black on the toe, with a very noticeable scuff on the side. Huh. When did I get that? Maybe if I rub it it’ll come off. Or maybe I could paint over it with nail polish? I’d need exactly the right shade, otherwise it’ll look like I tried painting over a scuff with nail polish, which would just be lame… Wait, where was I again? Something to do with…

Oh, right. “It’s, um, Tsirel,” I tell her. “I think with her, and, um. Me? There might be some…uh, problems?” My cheeks are heating up and I’m pretty sure my hair isn’t long enough to cover it, even ducking my head like this.

I can’t see Yael’s face (because I’m purposefully looking away from it), but I can hear the pause before she muses, “The two of you have a history?”

Suddenly I have this vivid flashback of the first time I was punched in the face. I clear my throat, still not looking at her. “In a manner of speaking.”

Why am I even bringing this up? Yael has made very clear how she feels about my input. My stomach sinks with the dread of having bared my soul to someone who will only shove it back in my face. Any minute now.

Yael hums thoughtfully. After a long moment, she says, “I’m glad you told me.”

I think my brain short-circuited after the ‘I’m glad.’ Because…what? Just. What?

“You’re _what?_ _”_ I repeat.

She gives me a chagrined look, but explains, “I work strictly on a basis of lowest-possible complications. Occam’s razor. That means,” she says loudly, interrupting my asking what that means, “that when faced with several hypotheses, or casting options, in this case, you should always go with the simplest, most straightforward solution. Since we have plenty of drama hopefuls to choose our cast from, if there is a chance one of those girls will cause undue problems, I’d rather avoid the situation altogether.”

“Oh,” I manage, feeling oddly touched. And a little embarrassed by my own confrontation-o-phobia. Not embarrassed enough to have Tsirel join drama, of course, but still. “You and her might have gotten along though, for all I know. She might have struck you as a…kindred spirit.”

“I’d have struck her first,” Yael mutters.

I laugh despite myself.

“What,” she demands, immediately defensive.

“No, you’re just.” I have to pause to finish laughing. Yael is looking at me like she’s unsure whether to go into sarcastic or outright-malicious mode. “Your commentary on life is great.”

That’s when Yael gets this funny look on her face… It isn’t irritated or even unfriendly and I’m not really sure what to do with it, so I grab at the only available thing to do which is ask her politely if she needs to use the bathroom.

Oh, there’s that irritated and unfriendly look I’m getting to know so well.

 

*     *     *

 

“You do know what we’re doing here, right?” Yael asks when I sit down next to her at the empty table in the Loune. Yael told me no less than three times to get there at 7:45 before the other heads show up, so here I am, at 7:58. It feels good, getting to places so crazy-early!

“Of course,” I say. “This when all the play heads share their tryout lists, and if there are any overlaps where two parts of the play want the same girl in their department, they have to work it out.”

 Yael nods. “That’s right. Everything we do with our cast later on is all made possible though this nasty, drag-down fight.”

“It is?” I ask, taken aback. Seriously, is this job entirely about arguing with people? Because, yeah, I can see why that sort of position would be appealing to Yael, but personally I would rather do pretty much _anything_ else. Write a five-page book report. Pesach-clean my dad’s car. Pet a porcupine with my tongue.

“Of course. How did you imagine it happens?”

I imagine it happens around a round table lit by torches, illuminating the solemn and yet optimistic expressions of The Play Heads of the Round Table. Queen Yael rises and proclaims, “Now we will discuss the girls we think will do best in drama.” She holds up a fairy wand with streamers coming down from the sparkly star on the top. “Whoever holds the sacred talking stick will speak, and everyone else will listen quietly until it is their turn.”

“Long live the Queen!” everyone shouts.

“And then we’d gather for a rousing, if slightly unprofessional, group hug,” I whisper to myself. Yael gives me a strange look.

“There are definitely no group hugs involved. Where these things are concerned, if no one walks away crying there’s probably something wrong.”

Wonderful. “All this fighting to keep the girls we want in drama?”

That gets me a look like of _course_ I should be willing to die, kill, and babysit my little brothers in order to keep the girls we want in drama. “Yes, but more importantly we’re fighting to keep the girls we _don_ _’_ _t_ want in drama _out_.”

Luckily I don’t have to respond to that because the door swings open and the song-dance heads enter right on time, followed by the dance and choir heads a few minutes later.

Yael smiles at them as they take their seats, then mutters to me under her breath, “Brace yourself, this is going to get ugly.”

 

*     *     *

 

"Are you okay?"

After the negotiations are over and most of the other heads have left, Yael lies to my face ("I'm fine"), collects her things, and stands up. I stand alongside her.

"You're fine," I echo doubtfully. "You've been trying to kill somebody with your brain for the past forty-five minutes."

She tilts her head toward me; questioning, if still seriously edgy.

"You were clenching and unclenching your right hand under the table. The other girls couldn't see it, but I could."

Yael dismisses that with a wave of said hand and heads toward the front. I trail after her, annoyed, and catch up to her at the door.

“Seriously, what’s wrong? We got most of the girls we wanted, and yeah, a lot of the girls who didn’t really fit anywhere else, but all in all we totally rocked those negotiations. We even got Sara out from under the dance heads.” I point at Yael’s hand, which is compulsively clenching and unclenching again, and add, “See? You’re totally trying to Force-crush someone’s larynx. What did they do?”

“It’s not them who are driving me crazy,” Yael says at last. “It’s you.”

For some reason, my brain doesn’t seem to be processing this new (okay, maybe not so new) piece of information. “Me?” I echo.

“Yes, you! I had to do all the negotiating – practically all the _talking_ , period!”

“That’s not true,” I protest. “There was that one time—”

She sneers. “Yes, that one time when dance and song-dance were fighting over Zehava, and you raised your hand, _waited to be called on_ , and said, ‘maybe we should ask her what she prefers to be in.’”

“Well, I’m sorry for thinking the actual person’s opinion is important,” I reply, affronted.

“You can’t do this job always waiting for approval!” says Yael. “You’re so _nice_ that you’re basically nothing else!”

“Well, I’d rather be too nice than – like _you,_ _”_ I retort.

Her eyes narrow. “And what’s that, exactly?”

“Uh,” I say intelligently, chickening out at the last minute. “Nothing. Just, you know, humility is a virtue.” Yael eyeballs me and I add, nervous, “Little Har Sinai so very small and all that.”

“Little Har Sinai was the smallest _mountain,_ _”_ Yael says, crossing her arms. “It wasn’t a field or a valley. If you want to be humble, first you have to be a mountain, be something great, and then decide not to rub it in people’s faces. You can’t just let yourself get walked over and say it’s in the name of humility.”

“Umm…am I supposed to be the mountain? I kind of lost track of that mashal there.”

Yael rolls her eyes. “Listen very closely, okay? If you want to do something, _do it._ I hate to break it to you, Mara” (“Mari,” I correct faintly) “but if you need permission for everything you do, you will never get anything done. That’s not me being ‘mean.’ That’s a fact of life.” At my hurt expression, she gives me a little sardonic smile. “Are you upset? You could always quit.”

The two of us are facing off across a long stretch of dusty land. I tip my cowboy hat low over my eyes and gaze at Yael, who is also in full cowboy garb, and as silent and unreadable as always. I rest my hand over the gun at my hip. Music whistles in the background. A single tumbleweed bounces across the deserted terrain.

I grit my teeth. “No way.”

Her smile widens. “All right then.”

Two shots fire in the silence, kicking up clouds of dust.

The smoke clears, and at first it seems nothing has changed. Another tumbleweed lumbers by. Suddenly I buckle to my knees and collapse to the dirt, clutching the gunshot wound in my stomach, watching helplessly while Yael swaggers away, spurs jangling.

And, like, okay, I may not be the smartest person in the world, but I’m pretty honest. And if I’m completely honest with myself right now, gasping and bleeding out dramatically into the sand, it might-maybe-possibly be that what I’ve been looking for in Yael isn’t a co-head, but a role model. A big sister. Someone I can look up to. Aspire to be like.

It probably shouldn’t be her.

Correction: it definitely shouldn’t be her.

There is a glint of black metal in the too-bright sunlight as Yael spins her gun on one finger and tucks it back into her holster without breaking stride. The cowboy getup fades as she walks away, leaving her in the same unassuming uniform I’m wearing but no less intimidating than when she was carrying an actual (imaginary) firearm.

And so, yeah, it might end up being her anyway. Because I’m a _moron_. But hey, this might just top my Dumbest Things list.

So that’s. You know. That’s always exciting.


End file.
